Hey all, just wanted to say a few things on here as I’ve taken the position of beat writer for Streaking the Lawn and will be moving away from my official position here at LRA.
Writing for this site for the last two years has been an absolute privilege and while I’ve already thanked those that I’ve worked with, I’d like to emphasize again what an amazing opportunity it’s been to work with the LRA crew and how grateful I am that they took a chance on a random 16 yr old kid with an instagram fan account.
Additionally I just want to say thank you to everybody here on the LRA forum who has read and interacted with my stuff and undoubtedly endured reading through some of my growing pains as an analyst and journalist (lol). It’s been so fun to talk and argue about uva basketball with everybody on here and I appreciate all of you putting up with a know-it-all kid constantly obfuscating abt x’s and o’s.
I’ll still undoubtedly be hanging around the forums quite a bit so this isn’t a goodbye or anything. Just wanted to emphasize how grateful I am to everybody who is a part of the LRA crew and community as I wouldn’t be anywhere without this group of people.
Yeah — I’ll be doing plenty of podcasting for STL. But nevertheless always recommend all the great stuff LRA puts out with real experts on these topics compared to my uneducated guesses haha
Congratulations, Zach! That’s huge! And thanks for all the amazing content and insight you’ve provided in your journalistic content and on the forums. This fifty-six-year-old hoops junkie has learned a ton from you. I’m excited to read your stuff at STL and to see where you go from there.
Damn Zach just LeBron’d us. He’s taking his talents to STL. I remember when those guys were 2 writers and asking for advice on how to get views. Now they’re poaching up and coming talent. Congrats Zach and enjoy the BR network of resources.
Zach is ridiculously talented, everybody here knows that. What separates him though is his initiative is off the charts, 5-star elite. LRA didn’t come to him. He asked for a chance, and then he did all the grunt work we assigned, while seeking out opportunities to do more.
One of my first interactions with him, I told him about Taine Murray when only a handful of people outside the coaches office knew of their involvement. There were a few random clips on the net of him, but no decent highlight mixes. I said I wish I had one. Zach put one together and delivered it to me later that same day. I never asked. He just did it., and never told anyone. Proved himself trustworthy, dependable, and resourceful with one act.
He did research on current players last season, reaching out to people who knew them well. When he asked me who to talk to for background on one player, I linked the twitter account of a former AAU coach he’s close to. I assumed he’d just try sending a DM. Turns out the guy didn’t answer, so Zach found an old phone number tied to him on an out of date webpage. Cold called it, and eventually did track him down. We later had that coach on a podcast. Again, no one asked him to do any of this. He took the initiative on his own.
Those are just two examples of many. I’m sure there are a lot of young wannabe sportswriters out there who’d love to be in Zach’s shoes now. But there aren’t many who would be willing to walk the path he took to get there.